The Fear of Google Continues as a Hot Topic and Popular News Story

What might this holidays season's most popular item and topic be for grown-ups be? A satellite radio? A new car with GPS? A trip to St. Barts? Nope, it just might be the fear of Google and what to do about it. I guess a company that does "no evil" and fear of that same "no evil" company are not the same thing. (-;

Reuters (via News.com) has a lengthy look at how another group, in this case Madison Avenue advertisers, fear Google in the aritcle: Madison Avenue faces Google fears.

"There is an inherent conflict of interest there," said Brian McAndrews, chief executive of aQuantive, a company that is both a big buyer and reseller of Google advertising but also a rival supplier of ad measurement tools. "Am I going to use Google to measure my search results on Microsoft and Yahoo? Am I going to use Google to measure my advertising results on ESPN?" McAndrews asked rhetorically during the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit on Thursday.

Lauren Rich Fine from Merrill Lynch recently told clients. "However, Google is starting to attract negative publicity (tied to) its foray into other mediums but from a consumer perspective it's still "all good."

Btw, Battelle recently had an excellent post (with lots of comments) on what he called Google's "tipping point."

In my most recent round of conference presentations to search consumers, I've started to notice more interest in what other search companies are doing and how to use these tools. That said, Google is still number one.

On Charging Marketing Firms

[David] Verklin, [chief executive of Carat America] (owners of IProspect) complains Google has begun charging marketing firms like his own $50,000 a month to use Google's ad buying system. He adds, ""We're going to try and convince (Google) we think that's a bad idea," Verklin said. "I don't want to have to use one tool to manage Google and my own tool to manage Yahoo and Ask Jeeves and everyone else," he said of conflicts between ad systems."

What does Google have to say?

"There's this notion that Google has a grand master devious plan" to put ad agencies and publishers out of business, [Marc] Leibowitz [Google's director of strategic partnerships] said. "Nothing could be further from the truth. We see ourselves in a symbiotic relationship with them."

About the author

More on Industry

"SERP changes to Google algorithms are as inevitable as death and taxes," said Hilton's Melissa Walner, discussing how important it is to be nimble in the ever-changing search marketing industry.
0 Comments